Audience Research Survey Findings

Audience Research Survey

Here is the link to the questionnaire that I made on Survey Monkey

Click here to take my Audience Research survey

Music Source

Part of sound that we used in our movie was found on this royalty free music website, in which the user can choose what genre of music they want or what kind of feel they want in their music such as a dark or suspenseful feel.

Incompotech Music Website

The other parts were recorded on Cubase 6, using a MIDI keyboard to create the sounds of static and the piano melody of the first half of the film.

Detailed Opening Sequence Analysis

Sweeney Todd

The opening sequence for Sweeney Todd shows many conventions of typical horror films, the main one being the use of blood which is one of the main themes in this horror as well as other types of horror (such as Slasher).

Music- The music used at the start is very low pitched and eerie, the audience immediately knows the films genre because of the dark nature of the sounds. An organ is used for the first part of the music, giving a dark/old feel to the film, it then carries on to some string instruments which carry on the dark and eerie sound of the piece.

Footage- The clip starts off with a crane shot, slowly moving down through the fog and revealing several Victorian style houses, which allows the audience to know that its set in the past. The camera gets closer to a window and zooms in to reveal a barbers chair and a sudden splash of blood hits the window. The camera changes to a shot of a wall, with two portraits made in dark liquid (appears to be blood) as the camera slowly pans downward as it follows a trail of blood. The blood runs through various settings that are included in the film and gives a small preview as to what happens in the film.

The Brief

The brief I have been given consists of two tasks that are to be completed individually or in a group (maximum four people)

Preliminary Exercise: create a film that lasts no longer and no less than 60 seconds. The film can be any genre that we want and has to follow set rules such as the 180 rule, demonstrate match on action and shot/reverse shot. The film involves filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, which whom she/he exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue.

Main Task: create a short horror/thriller film that lasts no longer than 2 minutes.  

Audience Survey Results

LiveType Movie Title

This was my first attempt at using LiveType for our opening titles. I tried out various backgrounds and texts to try and suit the nature of the film.
Background noise of a scream or high pitched noise would work well with these opening titles

This was the second attempt at using LiveType. Again using different texts and backgrounds to suit the genre of our film.

Recce of First Location

Recce of Second Location

Storyboard

This is the original storyboard for our short horror, but once we had been to the scene where we wanted to record it to get the recce shots, we realised it would be too difficult to get a lot of the shots due to safety hazards and because it didn't line up with the college that we wanted to use to represent the flashback version of the building.

Risk Assessment

This document shows the risk assessment carried out on both locations used in our film. This is one of the most important sheets as we will be responsible for any injuries. This list was particularly long for our film because of the set where we were shooting at (Tunstall Courts); This is because of all of the dangers due to it being abandoned and destroyed, making it fragile and covered in dangers.

The Script

Props and Equipment List

Audience Research Survey

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/FCJTKPB

Opening Credits

We have multiple ideas on how to present the titles in our opening sequence, most of which are influenced by popular horror films and tv shows.

One example of this is the title font and layout of The Exorcist-


Another idea is how The Walking Dead have presented the cast in their opening credits, using a similar use of editing on the text-

The Pyre Animatic

Production Logo

Mood Board

Shooting Schedule

Here is the first edition of our shooting schedule, which shows the dates in which we planned to shoot, as well as other important details. We have redesigned it to make it look more neat and professional.

History of Horror

Horror Movie Mind Map

Film Concept Presentation

The Pyre Treatment

This is the treatment sheet for 'The Pyre', it shows information on the film such as location, props needed, cameras needed and cast etc

Call Sheets

The call sheet is a sheet which was made to be given to the crew before going to each location so that they knew where it was, what and who was needed there and when to go there.

Inspirational Opening Sequence Analysis

Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny

In Tenacious D The Pick of Destiny the song ‘Kickapoo’ is played throughout the opening scene. The opening scene is effectively telling the viewer about the backstory behind the main plot, about how one of the main characters, Jables, ended up in Hollywood. It begins with an establishing shot of a house with subtitles telling us that it’s in the town of Kickapoo, Missouri. It cuts from different camera angles rather quickly in the first part of the intro where it shows us his family sat around the table but Jables is nowhere to be seen. A pan of music posters, upstairs in Jables’ room, shows bands that would seem rebellious to a Christian family.  Jables jumps out behind a wall downstairs. The camera pans to him and a spotlight is put on him as he plays to his family. Many close ups and medium close ups are used to show his families reactions to his music. His father stands up, drags Jables out of the room. Whilst being whipped with his fathers belt, the music stops and you hear him whining. The music then has a change of tempo as his father grounds him for what he’s done.

KickAss

Starts with an establishing shot of the city with background music playing as the camera pans down. A voiceover of the main character starts as the camera pans further down and a character in a superhero costume comes into view. The camera then starts moving towards the character, getting closer and closer then finally being above them, with a bird’s eye view of the drop from the building. This is done with a crane shot to get all the angles used. A low angle shot from street view to show where the character is. A few wide/medium shots of people staring up. A close up of the characters face. A bird’s eye shot of the street below. A close up again and then switching back to a bird’s eye view of the character falling from the building. Low angle and medium shots of people applauding as the character falls to the ground. Long/medium shot of the character falling, pov shot falling towards the earth. Medium shot with pan as he crashes into a car. Wide shot shows peoples reactions. As this happens, the dramatic music stops and new music starts playing. A tracking shot with pan shows the character lying on the car as the voice over continues. It ends with a close up of the license plate KICK-ASS.

Horror Audience Research

Se7en Clip Analysis

The first shot – medium long shot – shows where the characters are and where the scene is being set, shows brad pitt walking through the door into a room where morgan freeman is sat and the camera slowly zooms in

Second shot – medium shot – shows Morgan freeman moving away from his desk whilst talking to pitt who isn’t in the shot

Third shot – close up – close up of the cheat sheets pitt used in the film

Fourth shot - medium shot – pans vertically, following pitt as he sits down, showing the emotions in his face

Fifth shot – multiple shot reverse shots between the two characters showing conversation/awkward silence, medium shot/medium close up of each character

Sixth shot – high angle medium close up - showing his body language and making the character seem less powerful form the angle

Prelim Evaluation

In our prelim task, we had to create a film that lasted no longer and no less than 60 seconds. The film could be any genre that we wanted and had to follow set rules such as the 180 rule. The film had involve filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, which whom she/he exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue.

The plot of our film was of a man, whose name isn’t told in the story, who has made a deal with the mafia and has tried to get away but get kidnapped by them. He wakes up in a storage room and is confronted by the boss of the mafia gang.

The first thing our group did was plan the film on a story board, which ended up being 3 pages long. This included a short sentence or two describing what happened in the shot and a small diagram depicting what we aimed to be able to shoot. In our story board, we noted down which camera angles would be used in each shot. For example, to show conversation between the two characters in our story we used a shot reverse shot.

We found finding a setting for our movie rather easy as all we needed was an empty room to film. Background noise was a problem however as we recorded part of our film in a music practice room and other parts in open areas where there was a lot of noise. We managed to edit out the sound when it came to editing the whole movie. One thing we could have added while we were editing was possibly a backing track before the characters meet each other.

Overall, i think our final product was successful especially for our first time recording and editing.

Opie Evaluation

I think that my Opie photo went fairly well for my first try. I didn’t find the task particularly challenging as I have used Photoshop before, however I did have some trouble when trying to select individual parts to fill (e.g. hair, shirt etc.) and although I did start to get the hang of it as the lesson progressed further. The instructions were simple and easy to follow, making the task easier to finish, especially for someone new to Photoshop or new to using a Macintosh computer. I found the task enjoyable to do and I learned a few things from it, such as how to add certain effects like ‘stroke’. I also learned more about the layers and how they can help to get more detail for the Opie task in things such as hair highlights and details on clothing etc. For the task I had to take a self portrait, on the application ‘Photo Booth’, to use as a template for my opie piece. I then had to select certain parts of the photo, using the lasso tool, to colour in specific parts of the photo. I started with the hair, then moved onto face, features, shirt and then finally the background.